Friday, January 21, 2011

Friday Rolls

Why do I call them Friday Rolls? It's because my family doesn't eat meat on Friday, so I have to think of some rolls that go well with cheese, egg or tuna.

I've took the reference of artisna bread making, like this beautiful farmer bread from Cooking Bread, which means the fermentation undergone for a long period of time at least twice. Usually such bread would require 2 days to make, but we city people (and hungry people) can't wait, so I cut it to one day, the result is still beautiful - these rolls have a porous interior and a light crisp crust, reminiscent of Italian bread ciabatta.

I flavor the dough with some aromatic ingredients, like dried oragano, onion and sun-dried tomato, which I think go very well with non-meat filling. You may like bacon then.

In a bowl, mix 150 g flour, 130 ml water, some (e.g 2 g) of the yeast and a pinch of sugar until everything well-combines. The dough looks like a thick paste. Cover and let in rise in a room temp for 1 - 2 hours

In a large mixing bowl, combine the 380g flour, 220 ml water, the rest of the yeast, the salt, the oil, and the yeast mixture from the point 1, knead to form a smooth and elastic dough. In the last 5 minutes of kneading, add oregano and sun-dried tomato. The dough should be moist but doesn't stick to hand. Grease a large mixing bowl, place the dough in, scatter the onion on the top, cover with a (greased as well) plastic film. Let it rise in the lowest shelf of the fridge for a half day. The dough will double its volume.

Take the dough out and knead about 20 times to re-distribute the yeast bubbles. Divide the dough into 6 - 7 portions. Let them rest for 20 - 30 minutes (covered with moist tea towel) in room temperature.

Take out one portions, gently rock it back and forth to form an oval shape. Use a very small rolling pin to roll half of the oval (long side) flat, lift up this flap and cover the round half. You may like to check with CookingBread's Farmer Bread for his splendid step-by-step photos, but I'd suggest to skip brushing oil on the flap, because in my case, the oil prevented the flap to stick on the dough, as a result, it stood up during baking. Place each roll on a large baking tray which is line with baking paper, cover with a plastic wrap and rest for 1 hour in the room temp of 27C.

Send the tray to oven, immediately throw in 2 ice cubes to the bottom (to create steam) and shut the door right away. Bake the rolls for 15 minutes, check the doneness by tapping roll's bottom, if it sounds hollow it's done then.

If you want to freeze some rolls for future consumption, take the rolls out from the oven 3 minutes earlier. Please thaw the frozen rolls inside a plastic bag, bake them in a medium-hot oven for a few minutes.